The invention relates to a device for picking up and transporting onwards stacks of packaging blanks arranged the one above the other, especially for the manufacture of cigarette packets of the hinge-lid type, a plurality of stacks of blanks being positioned in rows beside one another on a base, especially on a pallet, and layers, formed preferably of a plurality of rows, being disposed above one another, which may be grasped either individually or in groups by a pick-up head and may be set down on an onward conveyor leading to a packaging machine or the like.
Blanks made of (thin) cardboard, for the manufacture of cigarette packets in particular, are generally made available to the packaging machine as stacks of blanks. The blanks are predominantly delivered on pallets, aligned in parallel rows and in layers which are aligned in parallel rows and in layers which are arranged the one above the other and which are separated from one another by thin intermediate layers. Emptying the pallet and transferring the stacks of blanks to the packaging machine, especially to blanks magazines of same, is supposed to take place automatically, i.e. entirely by machine.
The purpose underlying the invention, therefore, is to propose a device which is suitable for grasping in succession, either individually or in groups, stacks of blanks and transferring them to an onward conveyor.
In fulfilment of this purpose, the device according to the invention is characterised in that the pick-up head may be moved, on the one hand by a telescoping member in a horizontal plane, especially in the conveying direction of the onward conveyor, and on the other hand along a crossrail running horizontally, backwards and forwards transversely to the conveying direction of the onward conveyor, and also up and down.
With a pick-up head which may be moved in the above sense, each region of the layer surface of the stacks of blanks can be approached, in order to grasp at least one stack of blanks, preferably, however, a plurality of stacks of blanks lying beside one another, and lead them towards the onward conveyor running at the side beside the pallet.
The lifting or pick-up head for the stacks of blanks is here movably mounted on a fixed support structure which consists of three upright posts. The latter are so arranged that two posts, disposed on the one side of the pallet, are connected to one another by an upper transverse bar. The third post, positioned on the opposite side of the pallet or on the outer side of the onward conveyor, is connected, via the crossrail which joins at the upper end, with the transverse bar of the posts lying opposite. The pick-up head, which may be moved on the underside of the crossrail, can therefore be driven out of a position above the stacks of blanks into a position above the onward conveyor.
The onward conveyor is also configured in a special way according to the invention. This conveyor has an interim store which preferably consists of a storage conveyor arranged above the onward conveyor.
In addition, according to the invention, a collecting vessel is provided for (thin) intermediate layers.
Further details of the invention relate to the design of the supporting framework for the pick-up head, to control units for the latter, and to the design of the onward conveyor and of the collecting vessel.